IndyCar Long Beach 2013: Practice 2 times

19 April 2013

Teams and drivers were left frustrated in the second practice session for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Friday afternoon as the 45 minute running time was significantly shortened by a number of lengthy cautions.

The session was less that five minutes old when the first red flag came out, after the #6 Dragon Racing car of Sebastian Saavedra went into the turn 5 run-off and then spun into the wall as he tried to get himself back on track, burying the nose of the car into the tyres in the process.

Will Power was at the top of the timesheets at this early stage with a lap of 1:09.7695s, and it was some seven minutes before the track was ready to go back to green again. Unfortunately the resumption lasted just four minutes before Justin Wilson put the #19 Dale Coyne Racing car into the tyre wall at turn 8 and then got collected in the rear by the #78 KV Racing Technology car of Simona de Silvestro.

That incident put both cars out of the running for the rest of the day - Wilson's having sustained particularly heavy damage - and also took a long time to clear up and get the tyre wall repaired. When running did finally resume there were just 12 minutes remaining, and a further final red flag for a crash by Scott Dixon at the exit of turn 9 did nothing to help matters.

The cars were able to take to the track again and in the final runs it was Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay who went to the top of the timesheets with a lap of 1:09.4224s (102.054mph) before local waved yellows for EJ Viso hitting the tyres at turn 9 effectively ended the session.

Hunter-Reay's time was enough to put him 0.0379s ahead of Mike Conway who was in second place again for the second session running in his only confirmed IZOD IndyCar Series outing of 2013 for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

"Got rid of the cobwebs and the car felt good though we couldn't get a clear run," Conway said later. "We got one in, and I think a lot of people they either got one or they didn't get any so we were lucky to just get the one."

Practice 3 takes place at 10.40am West Coast time (6.40pm BST) on Saturday morning ahead of qualifying which takes place in the afternoon from 2pm (10pm BST). A half hour Sunday morning warm-up is the last track activity for the IndyCar drivers before the race which starts at 1.45pm (9.45pm BST.)